MusicEnglish is Back in Class

I’m really excited today for two reasons. Firstly tonight is the big night where I start my MusicEnglish classes in York. I’ve no idea if anyone will turn up yet but I’m hoping word gets around soon enough. I’ve been doing a big promotional push this week. Not through social media as you might expect but good old knocking on doors and talking to people. I’ve spent a lot of time in cafes, bars and libraries this week handing over my leaflets and business cards to people in places where I’d expect to find learners of English. I’m really starting to enjoy this  I’m thrilled about the idea of taking the music back into the classroom where it came from in the first place. I’ve also got a few ideas lurking around on what is going to happen in class. I’ve been speaking to local musicians Plaster Knuckle and Glass Caves and have invited them to come into class and play some songs and talk about them with the students. I hope they agree that will be really great.

The second reason I’m excited this week is because on Friday I’m doing the first in a series of workshops on using songs in ELT. Even better, I’m going back to my old workplace – Leeds City College to talk about using songs with ESOL learners. So this afternoon I’m busy jotting down my song ideas for the session.

I remember a few years ago when I did my first teacher conference and I was feeling a bit anxious. I was with a representative from a publisher and she said to me

Don’t worry, if you are talking to teachers about teaching, they’ll love it

That is the best piece of advice I’ve ever been given about doing talks with teachers. Teachers want ideas, practical activities, materials and they want to imagine how they could work with their learners. And they also appreciate a glass of wine too, but this is a day session, so not likely for this one. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Don’t you just hate modern technology?

10 Reasons Why Songs with Subtitles make Sense

1. Breaking the Ice, warming up and filling in – I’ve found that songs are a great way to help develop routines in teaching. For instance you could kick off with this song at the beginning of a week, or equally finish off with this one. Learners become familiar with the routines and look forward with anticipation to the next song you are going to do. And they can be great homework activities too.
2. Notice and Practise Grammar – Grammar doesn’t have to be dull. Try these songs out for going to, had better, infinitives, will, 2nd conditional and many many more. The songs could be used at any stage in the students’ learning, i.e. for presentation of language, practice or recycling from previous work.
3. Collocation Rich – All songs are rich in collocations (words that commonly occur together). There are some obvious ones for instance for verb + noun collocation, and perhaps this song for say, tell and a few phrasal verbs thrown in for good measure. Try this song for collocations with ‘out of”- my favourite.
4. Develop stress and rhythm – Raising awareness of stress and rhythm is very important and perhaps under-emphasised in ELT generally?  Weak forms become really easy to illustrate through songs where for instance ‘I have got a’ becomes ‘I gotta’ and so on. There are some really good examples of the use of ‘gonna‘ and ‘wanna‘. All songs can help develop awareness of word stress and rhythm. I get my students to listen to songs with printed songsheets and get them to underline or highlight the really stressed words, and then sing back together as a class with emphasis on the stressed sounds.
5. Pay attention to Sound and Spelling - Subtitles are splendid because they really do help learners to relate the words they hear to the written forms, for example I use this song to illustrate the written form of words with ING or this one for working on the ‘P’ sound as some learners find difficult to distinguish and articulate from the ‘b’ sound.
6. Improve reading skills – Taking a Pop-Lexical Approach to music, we might consider that we articulate language in chunks, and I think that the same goes for reading. We don’t consciously read every single word, we are aware of the chunks and skip along. But second langauge learners and equally students of literacy will benefit from the subtitles in becoming more familiar with reading along to the audio tracks. I used to have a student in my class who had never been to school as a child and struggled to read and write in both first language. She did, however, know many Beatles songs off by heart (and use to sing them in class), so I’ d give her Beatles songsheets to read while listening to a song at the same time.
7. Connect with learners - This is the most important point, I think. Students are only going to learn the words to the songs they like listening to. You could get your students to construct a class survey to find out about everyone’s music interests and habits. Then you could use the songs they like – don’t forget you can request songs to be subtitled here on MusicEnglish.
8. Action songs – These are especially good with young learners e.g. The Skeleton Dance. If you teach very young learners I really recommend keeping your eye on MusicEnglishKids.
9. Prompts for topic discussions – You might to want to use music as a way of addressing current issues, in particular for difficult topics like homelessness, drug addiction, domestic violence / abuse, alcohol abuse and so on.
10. Integrate with other creative expression e.g. drama, storytelling, poetry – I’ve recently been attending some storytelling sessions through creative play for very young learners. For instance in the telling of the story ‘The boy that cried wolf’ – The children start by making a sheep from a paper cup, cotton wool, and so on, then they sing a song about sheep – guess which one? The sheep live on a mountain with the boy shepherd, ‘She”ll be coming round the mountain when she comes’ … And then a few party games like ‘What time is it Mr Wolf?’ It’s tea-time and now I’m going to eat you. At the same time the story is building up – fantastic. What about teenagers though – how about design a film poster for this song, or write a film review?

A Pop-Lexical Approach in ELT

Language can be understood as consisting of a series of patterns or building blocks. To learn a language means to learn these patterns, these ‘chunks’ of language by:

• Firstly ‘noticing’ the pattern(s)
• Then making use of or ‘personalising’ such patterns
• Becoming more confident in their use through practice over time

In our first language(s) this is perhaps more subconscious and occurs over a long period of time but more challenging when it comes to learning a second or other language, and particularly after childhood.

Pop songs can help in this learning process because:

• They are so rich in everyday language
• Provide plenty of repetition of key patterns / chunks of language
• The combination of the words with melody, stress and rhythm can make learning more memorable
• Learning the words to songs is engaging and fun (if we learn the words to the songs we like)

If we combine listening to the songs and reading subtitles as on the videos at MusicEnglish then the words to the songs become so much more accessible: creating opportunities for students of English to learn the words to the songs they listen to and in the process helping them along the way in their becoming speakers of English.

She’s a Speaker of English, She Speaks English

This blog post is a response to a discussion on Facebook in the Students of TESOL and Applied Linguistics Group.

In the video we listen to a Japanese person who speaks English but one who struggles with her identity as a speaker of English. As with many people who speak English as another language besides her first language(s) she attributes her identity crisis to her English language use and in particular her pronunciation and accent. Learners and teachers of English will be extremely familiar with this situation – and as a teacher of English I want to reflect on how we can better understand this issue and more importantly seek to find solutions.

The title of this blog post is of course deliberate and the focus of this brief piece of writing. What’s important is the front-loading of ‘Speaker’ in the title. Here the perspective is on the person and I ask this question of the person in the video - Who are you? This is in contrast to  ’She speaks English’ where our interest is in the language, the way she speaks it and to what degree of accuracy and fluency. In the video the speaker’s focus is very much on the latter and she is ashamed of her perceived ‘mis-use’ of English and her confusion about what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ in the different usage contexts.

‘Identity’ is complex because people are! Learners of English are not bacteria in test tubes, nor Skinner’s performing rats. How people understand themselves as speakers of English is important. I see identity as a narrative, a story, one that has both a past and a future. Identity is a story that is preceded by other stories and anticipates the next. Moreover, the plots, the storylines are in part socially constructed and we seek to meet the expectations, to align with the plot. These stories are shared culturally and through language and other means but the problem for the speaker in the videos is that her audience is not familiar with her stories, nor she theirs.

In communication with others we draw on all our shared language, experiences, knowledge and so on – we are somebody in those stories, we are the actors. But when people are not familiar with the plot or the story doesn’t go as we might expect, it all breaks down and our identity is at stake – I would argue that migrants often experience these tensions and seek to resolve through aligning with the norms of language and cultural expectations.

Three examples to illustrate my take on identity:

A Story : Young beautiful princess meets handsome prince, they fall in love, have lots of children, live happily ever after in their big castle – a fairytale – Yes, but a plot a story that many people live and understand themselves by. Identity is a story.

History - I was moved by a recent television documentary about a woman who was the daughter of a Nazi concentration camp commander. She was only a baby when her father was executed for his crimes - and now she spends her whole life coming to terms with this terrible legacy. She tries to resolve this by meeting a survivor of the camp. But again she becomes the target of the survivor’s anger and herself a victim. Identity has a history.

A Future - I’ve had the pleasure over the years of teaching young adult ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) learners aged 16 – 19, we talk in class about their aspirations, their plans for their careers in the UK, what they want to do and BE – Identity has a future.

The speaker in the video is following a story, she has a history (one that precedes her narrative) and she has a future. Her story is not necessarily going to plan and she blames herself for it. So what can teachers do about this?

Of course there is no magic solution nor methodology but more a case of being human and developing the classroom as a community and as place where we all want to be and feel good about ourselves. Now as I said I don’t have an answer but I want to draw on a personal classroom experience that will help.

I used to teach in a church that also operated as a hostel for homeless people and as a classroom space for a local college of adult education. This particular classroom space was used for learners who were really hanging in there on the edge of local ESOL provision. These learners in this class had not been to school as youngsters and struggled with the literacy demands of ESOL provision that is on the whole funded by ‘test’ results – you get the picture I’m sure. There was one lady in my class, she had never been to school, never been to ESOL classes but had been living in the UK for a few years. She had many children all of who could speak English and a husband who worked. She looked after her family. She was put in the ‘pre-entry’ ESOL class (who thinks of these horrific labels? So she’s less able than a beginner?). There is plenty of methodological debate about how to teach language and literacy to such learners but it is one I abandoned a long time ago.

Mariana (not real name) in my opinion was stripped of her identity the minute she walked into that classroom in the homeless hostel as a pre-entry learner. She became labelled by others, very much the way the ‘Japanese’ speaker of English labels herself (and by others) in the video. Mariana’s main identity was as a mother to her children of whom she was very proud. Of course this identity wasn’t at stake in the classroom but why not use it as a means on which to build langauge / literacy teaching? And that’s exactly what we did in class at every opportunity. I would ask questions of her children, their names, ages, what school they go to and so on. She would proudly reply and tell me all about them with a smile on her face. The ‘breakthrough’ in her literacy development came one day, through a very simple exercise. I said to her jokingly one day that she had so many children that I was struggling to remember who was who – so I asked her for ‘homework’ if she would write down a list of all of them for me and bring to class. She did so the following week. She read them all back to me from the list, she told me that her daughter had helped her write the list. I suggested that it was a good idea to let her children help her with her reading and writing. She was very pleased with this.

As a teacher my suggestion is to always try and find ways of enabling students to draw on who they are as people, to use their identities as a resource in the classroom. Let them tell you their stories and share yours with them. Chiaki in the video not only speaks English but she is a speaker of English (and not ‘just’ a Japanese one) – her identity is the most important thing – After all, it is who she is.

What you can and can’t say in class

This blog post is kind of a follow on from the previous one inspired by the film ‘Blackboards’. Watching it again brought back memories of the many Kurdish students I’ve had the pleasure of teaching during my time as an ESOL tutor. I want to tell you a story about one of those students.

I was teaching a ‘typical’ ESOL class, a group of people bringing with them their rich cultures, languages and life experiences to the classroom but at the same time a feeling of the weight of the world’s problems resting there, and often on the shoulders of the teacher, or at least it felt that way at times. As always I was attempting to conduct a fine balancing act between allowing students to say what they wanted to, while guarding against causing offence to others.

I found it hard at times, and there were always cracks appearing all over the place with arguments breaking out here and there but nothing too worrying. I recall once saying to the class ‘we shouldn’t speak about politics’ – quite a ridiculous thing to say really, but I was at a loss with how to deal with the on-going political discussions that seemed to cause such division among the learners.

One day in class, the students were having to carry out some exam preparation with a rather banal task of ‘describe a past event in 150 words’ (yawn). No idea where these rubric writers get their ideas from – How about ‘tell me a story’ – the students had plenty of those, and were good at telling them too. Anyway the students started their writing in class and then finished it off for homework. One Kurdish student who we shall call Hamed (not real name of course) handed me his essay by hand at the beginning of the next class. I put the carefully written and presented piece of writing on the desk next to me and started class. But I was intrigued by it, the way Hamed had personally given it to me at the beginning of the lesson. So I waited impatiently for the break so I could read it.

Now this is how the story went (in my words from memory)

I will describe my past event – I remember one day. It was a terrible day. I was ten years old. We were running away. It was terrible, people were crying and dying. We were in the mountains, it was cold, very cold. We were frightened of soldiers all the time. Sometimes we stopped to have a rest. We didn’t have any food or water. Sometimes we stopped to bury people because they were dead and we buried them there. I was very sad but my life is better now. I know I shouldn’t talk about politics, I’m sorry Mr Richard.

What do you do? I’m a teacher.

From wikipedia: Blackboards (Persian: تخته سیاه‎, Takhté siah) is a 2000 Iranian film directed by Samira Makhmalbaf. It focuses on a group of Kurdish refugees after the chemical bombing of Halabja by Saddam Hussein’s. The screenplay was co-written by Makhmalbaf with her father,Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The dialogue is entirely in Kurdish. Makhmalbaf describes it as “something between reality and fiction. Smuggling, being homeless, and people’s efforts to survive are all part of reality… the film, as a whole, is a metaphor.

The story:  Kurdish teachers, carrying blackboards on their backs, look for students in the hills and villages of Iran, near the Iraqi border during the Iran-Iraq war. Said falls in with a group of old men looking for their bombed-out village; he offers to guide them, and takes as his wife Halaleh, the clan’s lone woman, a widow with a young son. Reeboir attaches himself to a dozen pre-teen boys weighed down by contraband they carry across the border; they’re mules, always on the move. Said and Reeboir try to teach as their potential students keep walking. Danger is close; armed soldiers patrol the skies, the roads, and the border. Is there a role for a teacher? Is there hope?

I was very taken by this film on first watching and have been ever since. It tells many stories, and this short clips says so much. As the article on Wikipedia points out, the film is a metaphor, but there are many here, depending on interpretation. I see metaphors of identity, of people’s endless searching for themselves among the stones and debris of conflict and inequality. The teacher’s promises of empowerment through literacy are rejected and embraced in the film respectively by the two children. The first boy who doesn’t need the ‘stories’ as he already has ‘a hundred’ of his own, while in contrast the second boy ‘Reeboir’ seeks to discover himself through learning to write his name. Isn’t this where education begins, a border crossing between being ‘called’ a name and to putting it down in words for yourself, where what remained unseen, somehow becomes visible?

But at stake here are not only the identities of the children but also those of  the teacher’s In the film we see the teacher’s struggle to ply his trade among the endless shifting to and fro across the border region. “What do you do?”, asks Reeboir. “I’m a teacher” comes the reply. I often feel like Reeboir the teacher in the film. As a nomad searching for that identity, that teacher-self, in a forever changing landscape, always moving backwards and forwards across borders, in a kind of no-man’s land where nothing stays still for too long.

Do you make this journey all the time? Aren’t you feeling tired?

Why are subtitles so important?

It’s October 2012 and three months have passed since I started MusicEnglish. During that time I’ve been scratching my head trying to write an ‘ABOUT’ section for the site. I’ve never been able to find the right words as to why I believe so strongly that the use of subtitles (captions) are so useful to language learners.

My initial inspiration for subtitling music videos came about through my experiences as a language learner living in Spain. I simply found watching TV with Spanish subtitles made it all so much easier for me to understand Spanish. Of course that is not surprising really, is it? So then, why is it that the use of video and audio media in English language teaching is often reduced to ‘listening comprehension’ exercises alongside gap-filling exercises – I mean having subtitles on videos, or reading the tapescript while listening to an audio CD would almost amount to CHEATING! Subtitles give you the answers too easily – true but why the questions in the first place? Surely we can use subtitled video for teaching, not just for testing? But when they (the learners of English) watch English programmes on TV, what do they do? Well they tell me rather sheepishly that they use the subtitles.

Watching music videos with subtitles is indeed a different media experience, yes it’s a richer, fuller one. And one that we should be seeking to exploit more regularly in language teaching when and where the technology is available. There is no doubt that many people the world over love learning the words to songs they like, with subtitles these words can be enjoyed and appreciated alongside the music and imagery on-screen. That is what MusicEnglish is all ABOUT.

I recently came across a fascinating blog that is devoted to the subject of subtitling. Dawn Jones the author of i heart subtitles relates her experiences of subtitles as a person who is hard of hearing. Importantly for me though is that she picks up on the fact that subtitles are not just for people with impaired hearing but for everybody. This is what she says;

Hard of hearing since birth,  subtitles being available on TV played an important role in being one of many things that helped me cope in a hearing world (and still does today).  Most popular programmes had subtitles and so I didn’t miss a single word of what was being said – brilliant – better than real life!   This is just one example of how subtitles have had a positive influence on my life.  People at school also wondered why I knew all the lyrics to songs in the charts – the reason – I always watched  Top Of The Pops (bring that show back please BBC) with the subtitles on! My point here is that same language subtitles in my mind isn’t always just a resource for the deaf or hard of hearing – ever sung at karaoke? The words you sing along to are a form of subtitling too, and sometimes subtitles can used in creative ways for entertainment and to educate.

Thanks to Dawn for finding the words for me.

#ScarySeason on #MusicEnglish – it’s #HALLOWEEN

To be quite frank with you, Halloween is something I’ve never bothered with in my teaching English. But last night while I was busy carving out the kid’s pumpkin and adding a final layer of blood dripping out of its mouth (the pumpkin that is), I kind of got imaginative. Perhaps with my new music site there was a chance to do something creative and fun this year, instead of being all humbug about this most gross of festivals?

Sparked by a request on MusicEnglish for ‘The Cult’ I searched for one of their great hits ‘She Sells Sanctuary’ on YouTube. The video was a bit of a blast from the past – did I really like that band all those years ago? Well the tune still shines in my opinion, and my memory was jogged to back when I was a fourteen-year-old with a mate teaching me the guitar intro. Still one of the few riffs I can manage today in fact. Okay the music is great but as for the image, don’t really need to take that too seriously, I think – but at least well suited for a Halloween appearance.

And so The Cult have become my first music video feature for this #scaryseason. Have you got any ideas for scary bands or songs? If you do then please make a request on MusicEnglish or tweet with the hash tag #scaryseason and @RichGresswell

Hideous Halloween wishes to all of you in this season of evil and bad will >:)

Talkin’ Music

I’m blogging music language tasters for learners, trying to find ways of exploring meaning through paraphrasing song lyrics, perhaps with a language focus each time. So why not sample the menu below? And if you can’t find anything to your taste then do make a song request and see what the chef can rustle up.

For starters: Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton

http://musicenglish.co.uk/tag/eric-clapton/

It’s late in the evening

She’s wondering what clothes to wear

She’ll put on her make-up

And brushes her long blonde hair

And then she’ll ask me

Do I look all right?

And I’ll say, yes

You look wonderful tonight

Will + verb is used in these song lyrics to express a characteristic of behaviour of somebody the singer knows very well. As Eric Clapton writes the words to this song he imagines the situation clearly as he has seen it so many times before. From these words we can imagine the situation too. He is obviously still deeply in love with her, probably after many years.

For the main course: Kathy’s song (Eva Cassidy version)

http://musicenglish.co.uk/tag/eva-cassidy/

I hear the drizzle of the rain
Like a memory it falls
Soft and warm continuing
Tapping on my roof and walls
My mind’s distracted and confused
My thoughts are many miles away
They lie with you when you’re asleep
Kiss you when you start the day
And as I watch the drops of rain
Weave their weary paths and die
I know that I am like the rain
There before the grace of you go I

Eva is looking through her window at the rainy day outside. She listens to the rain falling gently on her house. Maybe she is trying to work, but she can’t concentrate. The rainy day is making her feel sad and she is missing someone she loves. She wants to be with her loved one but she can’t. She feels like the rain, as it falls slowly down the window, tired and helpless after its long journey. All she has are her thoughts and a wish to be together again.

And for dessert: Imagine by John Lennon

http://musicenglish.co.uk/tag/john-lennon/

Can you imagine if there’s no countries? You know, it isn’t hard to do. We would have nothing to kill or die for. Can you imagine if people didn’t have any possessions? There would be no greed or hunger and people could share the world and live in peace. Now isn’t that something to dream about. But I wonder if you can?

In this song John Lennon uses there’s to talk about things that exist, but through his words he lets us imagine that they don’t exist. There is and There are, are often used in this way to talk about things that exist and don’t exist, for example there is (there’s) an apple tree in my garden, there are many people here today. But very often, as in this song, there’s no countries the singular form (there’s) is used rather than there are: This is very typical of informal speech and in songs. It is not a mistake, just the way people speak (and sing) English!

Grammar ‘notes’

It’s been a while since I wrote a post here on ELTbites. Not that I haven’t got anything to say, just been busy. Not busy with the things I should be though, but rather messing around as usual with new digital enterprises. It’s not unusual for me to go off in chase of my dreams, and one for me is creating a website that is going to cut it in the ELT world. Now, I don’t know why that does it for me, but whenever I start on such projects I’m just full of enthusiasm and there’s no stopping me.

To my latest project then, which IS

(drum roll)

(curtains please)

(Cymbals)

 www.musicenglish.co.uk

‘Learn English Grammar through music’

(I can hear the gasps of excitement)

Now everyone knows that grammar is a real turn-off for many teenagers learning English and that is the group this website is primarily aimed at. And of course for us oldies who are still into music – and why not indeed?

So on http://www.musicenglish.co.uk you CAN:

Watch and listen to music videos with subtitles (switched on or off – as you please)

AND

Make a request for a song you would like – and I’ll subtitle and publish on Inglishteacher

AND

Learn English Grammar, of course

Not bad, eh?

The songs are tagged according to a grammar guide to help not only learners but for teachers to integrate into their courses.

Now, personally, I’m pretty convinced that music is a great way to learn and internalise language patterns – after all, that’s all grammar is, until somebody started inventing dull words to categorise language

So do take a look at my new site, yes one last time

www.musicenglish.co.uk

Have a play, have fun and pass on to your colleagues and students.

I hope you like it, I’m pretty proud of it – perhaps this is going to be the one that makes it? Yeh, right, until the next one

Nice one Cyril – Happy holidays Bulgaria

Today is the 24th of May. The day of Bulgarian Education and Culture, and Slavonic Literature. (Bulgarian: Ден на българската просвета и култура и на славянската писменост), a national holiday celebrating Bulgarian culture and literature as well as the alphabet. It is also known as “Alphabet, Culture, and Education Day” (Bulgarian: Ден на азбуката, културата и просвещението).

It’s a day that celebrates the foundation of the Cyrillic Alphabet by two brothers Cyril and Methodius in the 9th Century as a way of making the bible accessible to the Slavic people. These brothers were great educators of their time, and I’m proud to be part of a heritage that still continues to celebrate and value education.

Further reading

Best weather songs

Most evenings I try to avoid the weather forecast, I mean there is no point putting a dampener on the next day before it’s even started, is there?

Now, I really believe that only on a British TV weather forecast would they say something like this;

Well, the bad news for tomorrow is that the rain is coming back, but luckily what I can tell you is that this time it is WARM rain

No kidding. Oh I’m so pleased about that, it’s made my day. Every cloud has a silver lining and all that

Anyway I manged to find some lesson fodder in this little story, which is ‘best weather songs for English lessons’.

Here are five songs that came to mind (that I actually like), by the way the links go to ‘lyric videos on You Tube’.

Why does it always rain on me – Travis

Run – Snow Patrol (ok group name connection this time, but wonderful song)

November Rain – Guns and Roses

Here comes the sun – The Beatles

Wuthering Heights – Kate Bush

Personally, if I were using any of these songs in the classroom I’d probably not butcher them with gap fills. We’d first listen to the song, with the lyrics, let the students hum and sing along. Just enjoy the music. I would then probably draw on the lyrics and the music and ask the learners what kind of images and feelings, the words and music bring to mind. We could talk about associations of weather and feelings and how these are used for effect in both music and film. We might talk about personal and cultural attitudes towards weather. I might see if I could elicit any songs that the students like with references to the weather, in whatever langauge.

Would be great to hear your weather song suggestions and how you might use them in class.

Hope it’s sunny where you are?

Athletic vs Atlético – a question of spelling

Tonight is the big game as Athletic Bilbao take on Atlético Madrid in the final of the Europa league. I’ve been watching Athletic through this tournament and like many aficionados of football have been impressed by the passion of this team from the Basque country. But it is a question of spelling that intrigued me more than anything. This is what I found out from a quick glance at Wikipedia

Football was introduced to Bilbao by two distinct groups of players, both with British connections; British steel and shipyard workers and Basque students returning from schools in Britain. In the late 19th century Bilbao was a leading port of an important industrial area with iron mines and shipyards nearby. It was the driving force of the Spanish economy and as a result attracted many migrant workers. Among them were miners from the north-east of England, and shipyard workers from Southampton, Portsmouth and Sunderland. The British workers brought with them (as to so many other parts of the world) the game of football. In the early 1890s these workers came together and formed Bilbao Football Club. Meanwhile, sons of the Basque educated classes had made the opposite journey and went to Britain to complete their studies in civil engineering and commerce. While in the United Kingdom these students developed an interest in football and on their return to Bilbao they began to arrange games with British workers. In 1898 students belonging to the Gymnasium Zamacois founded the Athletic Club, using the English spelling.

So much history in the spelling of a word, and identity too.

May the 4th be with you

It seems a bit of a coincidence that only a few hours ago I wrote a post on the importance of stories. Having just clicked ‘publish’, I went to pick up my son from school who greeted me with ‘May the 4th be with you’. Now for you geeks out there, this won’t need explaining. It’s a pun on ‘May the force be with you’ from Star Wars, and that’s why today is ‘International Star Wars Day’. According to Wikipedia, the origins of the pun itself lie in a newspaper headline response to Margaret Thatcher’s May 4th victory in 1979. I think the original Star Wars movie came out around that time (but could be way off the mark here).

It was only 6 months ago, when my son and I were walking down our street. A couple of children were having a jumble sale in their front garden, selling off old toys and dvds etc. On their makeshift stall I spotted an unopened box set trilogy set of Star Wars videos (the first three films, which means parts 4, 5 and 6 of the story). I asked how much, £3 came the reply. What a bargain!

Since then my son has been absorbed by the story, he reads books on the saga and fights light saber duels with his younger sister.

Great stories, and happy children.

May the 4th be with you!

When literacy meets literature, the classroom wins

In the last post we discussed the different images and words that the terms Literacy and Literature conjured up for you. The findings so far are very interesting indeed…and THANKS so much for this

Literacy – languages, letters, consonants and vowels, writing, alphabet, syllables, literate, illiterate, chalk, black boards, handwriting books, spelling, pronunciation, grammar, reading, writing, understanding, spelling, comprehension, pronunciation, ability, well-read, underprivileged/ lower working class, unemployed, on benefit, angry, rude, jobcentre, hopeless, illiterate, Skills for Life Literacy Programme, phonics, systems, power, control, need, class, letters, words, science, decoding

Literature – poems/poetry (x 2), novels (x 2), short-long stories, fictions, non-fictions, literature review, romanticism, realism, folklore, culture, reading, writing, classics, plays, descriptions, manuals, manuscripts, guides, privileged, posh, undergraduate/graduate, better off, Shakespeare, educated, art, beauty, emotion, craft, joy/rage, enjoyment, pleasure

We can read a lot from these words, some points I think…

1. literacy is associated with ‘low culture’ while literature with ‘high culture’ – for comparisons of this idea compare and contrast e.g., tabloid / broadsheet newspapers, reproduced print / original artwork, Wikipedia / peer-reviewed journals and so on
2. literacy is associated with the ‘badly educated’ in contrast to literature which is linked to the ‘well-educated’
3. literacy carries negative connotations of control and poverty while literature points to positive associations of pleasure
4. literacy is a skill (the ability to read and write), while literature is an art, an individual and cultural means of expression
5. literacy is more generally associated with school or adult education classrooms while literature with higher education and outside classroom spaces

What happens when literacy meets literature in the school or adult education classroom? The answer to that one is that classrooms win, meaning…

…that whatever texts are brought into the classroom (whether they count as literature or not – a discussion for another day by the way), are reduced to classroom texts. The stories, the poems, the novels, the plays, the music, the nursery rhymes, become vehicles for an educational agenda which goes something like this…

a story becomes a reading comprehension

writing becomes a spelling test

a rhyme or poem  becomes a phonics exercise

a play becomes an argument-based essay

and so on…

I think we need new spaces in education that allow for students to engage with texts of one form or another whether stories, poems, music, art, mathematics and so on that don’t end up reducing their true value and transformative potential. What do you think?

Literacy and Literature

I’ve been thinking recently about two words and how they are understood differently and why. Moreover, I’m thinking about the implications the connotation of the two words has for education and society as a whole. So I was wondering if you could help me with a post I’m writing about this topic by carrying out the following (fun?) little activity, and then leaving your answer as a comment.

a bit of teacher-talk, sorry

You see the word LITERACY

now close your eyes and what images come to mind?

On a piece of paper, write down a list of words (as many as you want) to describe what you see and think of

now do the same again, but this time the word is LITERATURE

Please could you now write your words for each in the comments section and of course any comments of your own on this task, and what you think about the difference between the two words.

Thanks for your help.

Richard

Blogging in ESOL

My interest in Blogging started in the ESOL* classroom with young adult students who had for one reason or another been denied access to school as children. Consequently these teenage learners were having to learn not only a new langauge but also to read and write, probably for the first time.

Frankly speaking, I didn’t like what was going on in the classroom, and my interest in the use of digital technologies started in reaction to what I was seeing. The learners had exams at the end of the year, which they had to pass if they wanted to continue in the college.  These exams were all writing based,  so my job was really to get them over these major hurdles by hook or by crook. I knew how important passing the exams was for the learners,  not only in allowing them to progress, but also to access employment, gain citizenship and at the very least to take some sense of pride in their work. Most of the set assessment tasks were pretty ridiculous and totally disconnected from the lives of the students, having to teach them ‘how to write postcards’ was the final straw for me.

As this was going on though, I recognised that many of the students were quite happy using computers and technologies such as mobile phones. I was struck by the contrast between their perceived ‘inability’ to read and write  while at the same time managing Internet tasks with relative ease. All this turned my understanding of literacy upside down. What I did get from this was the connectedness between their use of digital media and technologies with their everyday lives and that through the use of new media they were able to find a voice that had remained silenced in the paper-based classroom environment.

The first step was to start a class blog with this group of students. I set it up and gave the students posting rights. We learned together how to use the blogging platform. We used the blog for classroom projects on food, music, sport and so on. All the things that teenagers are interested in. Most of the time I was the learner in these classes, I found out so much about them, they stopped being students and became people in my eyes. That’s the thing about blogging, people blog about what they are interested in, what they care about. If we use blogging in classrooms, or other forms of social media, it should never be for its own sake but to connect the outside lives of the learners to classroom learning.

And now you see why I resented having to teach them how to write postcards – how absurd!

It’s this connectivity between blogging and people’s lives that has really been the inspiration in my move to set up Babble. There is something really fascinating about how people are experiencing this ‘new’ social media and the way they are relating their life experiences, passions and interests. This is what I want to find out more about on Babble.

*ESOL – English for Speakers of Other Languages, these are adult learners of English living in the UK who have come from other countries around the world

The Grand Old Duke of York

Oh, The grand old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men;
He marched them up to the top of the hill,
And he marched them down again.

And when they were up, they were up,
And when they were down, they were down,
And when they were only half-way up,
They were neither up nor down.

This is one of my all time favourite pictures. It’s a picture I took of Clifford’s Tower in York, England, on a cold December day back in 2009. What I love about this image are the streaking lines made by the sledgers on the hillside and the lonesome figures trudging up the hill in the snow. Originally I took this photograph in colour but edited to black and white given the contrast of the snow and bleak tower.

Clifford’s tower was the site of the most shameful episode in the history of the city of York when 150 Jews were massacred on March 16th 1190 after taking refuge against a mob. This shameful tragedy has been well documented in the history of the city, although rarely referred to, it was also very sadly a common event at the time in medieval England.

This tragic historical moment and place reminded me of the ‘nursery rhyme’ ‘the Grand Old Duke of York’. Of course Nursery rhymes are able to retain a nation’s heritage in just a few memorable lines, (and they are also great in the nursery and primary classroom). But, I don’t know about in your country and language(s), but English nursery rhymes all seem to reflect a life that was so brutal. I suppose this is not surprising really, I mean after all nursery rhymes are ‘folk’ verses, they belong to the people and reflect their concerns and experiences of the time. When I start thinking of nursery rhymes they all seem so grim, for instance; (a table from Wikipedia on nursery rhymes)

Title	Supposed origin	Earliest date known
“Baa, Baa, Black Sheep“	The slave trade; medieval wool tax	c. 1744 (Britain)
“Doctor Foster“	Edward I of England	1844 (Britain)
“Goosey Goosey Gander“	Henry VIII of England	1784 (Britain)
“The Grand Old Duke of York“	Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York in the Wars of the Roses; James II of England, or Prince Frederick, Duke of York and Albany Flanders campaign of 1794–5.	1913 (Britain)
“Humpty Dumpty“	Richard III of England; Cardinal Wolsey and a cannon from the English Civil War	1797 (Britain)
“Jack and Jill“	Norse mythology; Louis XVI of France and Marie Antoinette	1765 (Britain)
“Little Boy Blue“	Thomas Wolsey	c. 1760 (Britain)
“Little Jack Horner“	Dissolution of the Monasteries	1725 (Britain), but story known from c. 1520
“London Bridge Is Falling Down“	Burial of children in foundations; burning of wooden bridge by Vikings	1659 (Britain)
“Mary Had a Little Lamb“	An original poem by Sarah Josepha Hale inspired by an actual incident.	1830 (USA)
“Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary“	Mary, Queen of Scots, or Mary I of England	c. 1744 (Britain)
“Old King Cole“	Various early medieval kings and Richard Cole-brook a Reading clothier	1708-9 (Britain)
“Ring a Ring o’ Roses“	Black Death (1348) or The Great Plague (1665)	1790 (USA)
“Rock-a-bye Baby“	The Egyptian god Horus; Native American childcare; anti-Jacobite satire	c. 1765 (Britain)
“There was an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe“	Queen Caroline of Ansbach; Elizabeth Vergoose of Boston.	1784 (Britain)
“Three Blind Mice“	Mary I of England	c. 1609 (Britain)
“Who Killed Cock Robin?“	Norse mythology; Robin Hood; William Rufus; Robert Walpole; Ritual bird sacrifice	c. 1744 (Britain)

The Grand Old Duke of York is interesting in itself as the tune and the lyrics have changed hands frequently though history, apparently it was used in reference to Napoleon and many others.

I was wondering about the nursery rhymes that  you remember, or perhaps are simply important to you in some way. Please do let me know of nursery rhymes in your langauge,  you could translate them in English and explain the meaning and how it connects with your history and culture. Now that would be an interesting project